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Friday, September 6, 2013

Tash's Pick of the Week: Green Arrow #23.1/ Count Vertigo #1

Written By Jeff LemireArt By Andrea Sorrentino
Colors By Marcelo Maiolo

This was one of the first of the bad guy New 52 wave of books. The regular creative team of Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino introduce us to the New 52 version of Count Vertigo. This ended up being my pick of the week because of the strong storytelling and the way anyone can relate to being able to pick themselves up from their boot straps. Provided that you are given super powers.

We see the beginning of the Count's story through his eyes as a small child as his mother is talking down to him. We get the details that his father was also the count of a small European nation (Dr. Doom?) and they were exiled and Count Vertigo's father was killed allowing his wife and unborn son to escape.

His mother keeps letting him know that if not for him, the Count's father would still be alive. The country that rightfully belongs to Count Vertigo is now in the hands of a dictator. I really felt a dirty environment that the Count lived in with his mother. Thanks to the awesome art renderings of Andrea Sorrentino and top notch colors of Marcelo Maiolo. Makes you want to take a bath.

The Count's mother is a drug user and decides that it would be a better idea to sell her son for drug money to a company that will experiment on him. It's quite heartbreaking to see her tell him that she'll be back as she collects her money and bolts. The next few years the Count is operated on and has his head shaved and a device implanted to give him powers to give people vertigo. (Hence the name, Duh!)

The Counts kills the people who have been experimenting on him. Next stop, his homeland. Count Vertigo kills the tyrant ruling his native land, then takes over. He then has his mother found and taken to the same building where he was given his powers. They meet face to face and his mother is happy to see him. He tells her of his taking back the homeland. She thinks she is going with the Count. How wrong she is.

Count Vertigo kills her and then tells his men to burn the building and his mother's body to the ground. As if they both had never been. Now his own man the Count decides to strike Green Arrow in Seattle. And Maybe catch a Seahawks game. Or not.